A Message from the Associate Vice Chancellor for Nursing

Celebrate, pay tribute to nurses

As we celebrate National Nurses Week, from May 6-12, it is a time of excitement at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. We are preparing to open our doors to our first graduate students this fall. A long-awaited dream for nursing in our region is now reality.

Nurses Week is also a time of reflection. We join our many friends and colleagues to celebrate and pay tribute to the nurses who are advancing health across the nation and the globe, meeting the diverse health-care needs of our population across a wide range of settings. In fact, the nation’s nearly 3.1 million registered nurses comprise our nation’s largest health-care profession, dedicated to improving health for all.

Health-care reform adds new urgency to the increased demand for greater access, higher quality, and more accountable health care in traditional settings and beyond. Now, more than ever, nurses are vital to the solutions we need to meet the complex challenges of health and health care in our society. Nurses can reshape and redirect the forces that make us healthy and the systems that provide our health-care services. Nursing leadership is required to address the underlying causes of poor health and to create solutions that improve both life and health. Nursing leadership is required to redesign how care is delivered, particularly in our health-care teams where communication and coordination can make all the difference. This means rethinking how we deliver care as teams, revaluing the contributions of the entire array of professionals involved in care, and having the courage to challenge systems that no longer best serve individuals, families and communities. It means examining scope of practice to assure that there are enough primary-care providers to improve care across all communities, particularly those that are underserved.

It was never a better time to be a nurse—to face such challenges when the stakes are at the highest. We could not be more excited at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing because our timing coincides perfectly with this urgent call for creative solutions. We welcome our first graduate students this fall to our interprofessional and innovative Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Science programs. We had a tremendous response to our call for applications, with a large and highly competitive pool of applicants. While the application process continues through the end of May, already we’ve seen incredible interest in both programs from nurses and other health professionals, not only from throughout inland Northern California, but from around the world!

It was most inspiring to read the essays of our first applicants, who share our vision for the future, where nurse leaders transform health care through nursing education and research. As they describe their backgrounds, it is clear these individuals have a passion for excellence and are drawn to this special opportunity to advance health and elevate the quality of health care. Our future students want to make a difference in health care; they see problems and think of solutions. Our future is in good hands.

The work of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing would not be possible without the many partners who also believe in this vision. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provided the founding $100 million commitment to launch the school, and many partners have joined us in myriad ways to provide advice, support, encouragement and excitement. We are nested in a broad community of nurses, friends of nurses and interprofessional colleagues who are making our vision real.

I thank you most sincerely for the incredible work you do every day, as a nurse or in support of nursing. I thank you for your leadership in providing your insight, feedback, expertise and support to the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Together, we will unleash the power and passion of nursing.